Effect of Microwave Power on the Yield of Essential Oil from Lavender

Abstract

Currently, microwave-assisted extraction (MAE) is the most widely used method to extract essential oil from several types of plants. MAE is considered to provide a shorter period for extraction and needs less amount of solvent compared to conventional methods. Hence, it should be an environment-friendly approach. In this particular study, the extraction of lavender oil was undertaken using the MAE method. This study aimed to investigate the effect of microwave power on the yield of essential oil from lavender. The experiment was conducted using a Miniflow 200SS instrument at microwave power ranging from 50 W to 200 W. The extraction temperature and ratio of material to solvent were constant at 100°C and 1:2 respectively. The maximum weight of lavender was approximately 15g. The highest yield of 1.8673%±0.054 was obtained with 175 W for 595 sec of microwave heating. The optimum microwave power was 150 W where the sample consumed 25.24 Wh and presented a yield of about 1.8346 ±0.049%. The obtained results have shown that microwave power has a slight improvement in the yield at higher microwave power if the same amount of energy is consumed by the materials.